Monday, March 17, 2014

Paycheck to Paycheck

If you find yourself not sufficiently depressed, checked out the new HBO doc Paycheck to Paycheck, featuring a single mother of 3 in Chattanooga struggling to make ends even remotely meet on $9.49/hr and no health insurance:
What makes Gilbert’s story so compelling is that she challenges almost every stereotype underpinning right-wing rhetoric about poverty, single mothers and the underemployed. Gilbert isn’t looking for a government “handout,” and she doesn’t blame others for her plight. She’s also remarkably patient and affectionate with her children, even as she raises them by herself. 
Sure she accepts food stamps, but she deserves them because she's "pulling herself up by her bootstraps!", unlike the bloodsuckers in Paul Ryan's fantasy “tailspin of culture in our inner cities, in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”

 In other words, she's white.

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